Maintenance Man of the Universe
by Ford.Ye.Fiji
Summary: Seriously AU. Rose is a robot and the Doctor is a hologram, between saving the Universe and trying to keep themselves operational, will they ever fall in love? Disclaimer inside. A little like Wall-E, but just the robot bit. NO FLAMES. Inspired by the quote from 'The Waters of Mars.'


**A/N:** **Writing this whopper is why I have been gone so long and the fact that I didn't have wifi. Unfortunately I won't be back until probably September after I publish this story. :( But, on a happier note, this is my fiftieth story! Yay! So I decided to publish my first romance fic. I mean, I've written others, but this one was finished first. But this AU mashes together the first and second series of New Who and I change a lot of stuff, so really** ** _really_** **AU. The only Doctor in this fic though, is Ten because I cannot write Nine. I stink at writing him, which sucks. Anyway, ahem, please forgive any and all mistakes I make and** ** _please_** **no flames. Now, enjoy! Disclaimer: I do not own Doctor Who.**

 **Maintenance Man of the Universe**

Rose sighed and tapped her fingers impatiently on the clipboard as the man stood before her.

"Really, sir, but the universe doesn't have a maintenance man. You don't even have an appointment."

"I'm from the Time Lords, and you've got a breakdown."

Rose raised an eyebrow, "The Time Lords broke up. Got old and damaged, they were shut down, out of date, you name it. I'm the last on staff now and I'm not even a Time Lord. I'm the new state of the art HUMAN."

The man scrubbed his face, "Really. Ms. Tyler. There are Time Lords- well a Time Lord- well one, and that's me. I've got to stay around, keep the universe up and running. To be honest, secretaries aren't really helpful when it's maintenance that you need."

Rose sighed and clicked the pen. "Fine. We do have an infection."

Rose leaned down to the desk and clicked keys of the computer. "Sycorax. Group of crude machine crustaceans, they've got into the metal bits."

He leaned down and looked at the screen. "The outer shell, the metal plating... Ooh, that's not good."

Rose sighed as he typed away and then he nodded, "Ah, I see the problem. Well, I best be on it. Good day Ms. Tyler." He tipped his blue cap.

He strode off in the direction of the universe machine in those converse and that strange suit with the Time Lord logo on it.

Rose called after him, "Wait!"

He turned, "Yes?"

"What's your name?"

"Oh, that's well. That's not really important, I'm just the maintenance man of the universe- nothing special."

"That's a real mouthful to say, how am I gonna call you?"

"Well... I um, I- The Doctor."

"Doctor? Don't be silly, that's not a name."

"Oi! Its a perfectly good name, Ms. Tyler."

"Rose- it's Rose."

"Well, then Rose, Molto Bene!" He turned to walk through the doors and Rose awarded his back with a tongue-touched grin, "See you around, Doctor!"

 **(-10-)**

Rose called the Doctor back exactly two days since she'd last seen him. He flickered into existence and grinned at her, "Hello, Rose Tyler! What seems to be the problem today?"

Rose frowned, "I believe it's rather serious. The organic material has been comprised. Some sort of, well, I dunno, somehow- it's sick."

The Doctor pulled a pair of glasses out of the pocket of his suit. He put them on and narrowed his eyes at the screen.

"What is it?"

"Well, um... You see someone has- um, infected the universe on purpose actually."

"It certainly wasn't _me_! I've never actually see the machine!"

He gave her a look, "Really?"

Rose blushed, "My programmer didn't even give me A levels..."

He stood back and held out his hand. Rose put hers in his warily. He opened up the panel in her arm to expose the wiring and a computer chip.

"Oi! That's a very nice and capable program, there's nothing inferior about it. You've been doin your job perfectly, which is keepin unauthorized people out! Blimey, I practically had to force my way in here!"

"You did _not_!"

"We were arguing for over an hour."

"We were?"

"Trust me, I have an excellent time sense."

Rose smirked, "I have to go back to work now- you better go fix- whoa!" Rose yelped as the Doctor yanked on her arm with surprising strength for a hologram as they ran off.

"Doctor! Where are we-?!" And then they burst through the doors into the room where the universe was kept.

The machine was huge, going up and down as far as the eye could see. The floor they were standing on connected to the machine through a single solitary walkway. As soon as it hit the big black piece of machinery, it spread in walkways and supports- a whole lattice work of paths going up and down of the side of the universe.

Rose gaped and the Doctor grinned, "So what do ya think?"

"Well, I- I thought there would be..."

"Ah, you want to see inside. Come on, I'll show you the core. See there are layers- mechanical, organic, lots of others- but in the core is where the actual universe really is."

He pulled her along again and Rose pushed her creaking unoiled legs faster. She really needed to take care of them if she was going to be running like this more often.

They reached a screen and he typed with amazing speed, and finally, a projection burst forth around them. Rose gasped, "It's beautiful!"

Planets and stars and nebulas and galaxies swirled around them in all their blue untouchable glory.

Rose gave him a tongue-touched grin. The Doctor decided he'd like to see more grins like that.

Rose realized that the Doctor had let go of her hand. She looked down and she found his hand to be in hers, not in hers like he was holding it, but more _in_ her hand. Like a ghost's.

"What the?"

He looked down and yanked his hand away, "Sorry, the touch function broke down again. Sorry."

"Touch function?"

"I was before they figured out how to make holograms fully touch compatible. I've only got feet and hands that can, you know, touch. The other touch technology they developed wasn't compatible with my older tech, so I didn't get an upgrade."

Rose stared at him and changed the subject abruptly, "Look at that! That planet is Earth, you were modeled off the creatures who live on it. Remarkable things really. Even when an infestation manages to breach the defenses in the machine, they always recover. Amazing people really."

Rose's brow furrowed. "How old are you? I'm model one and I've functioned for about twenty one cycles."

The Doctor rubbed the back of his neck, "Um, Model ten out twelve, and I've functioned for over nine hundred and three cycles."

Rose's eyes widened noticeably, "My model powers down after eighty cycles! How long until?"

He shrugged, "My model has only been able to function for about ten thousand years before it breaks down."

"Your model doesn't automatically shut down?"

"Nope."

"Huh."

They looked at each other for several minutes and then the Doctor coughed something about the infection and the tension broke. The two parted ways and Rose did not see the Doctor again until he left, tipping his cap and saying that a few rogue robots (he had just shut down) had deliberately made the organic bits sick.

 **(-10-)**

The next time, Rose saw the Doctor, she was on one of the higher walkways shouting at the Doctor to hurry up. A robot was chasing them. It had started when a new bot was assigned to help Rose, a male who had taken an immediate liking to her.

Rose has fended him off and then he decided that werewolves were a good idea. So he upgraded his model's function. When the Doctor had flickered up and seen the beast- which had alerted him to a problem, causing him to show up in the first place- the beast was angry.

It thought the Doctor and Rose were together, which didn't make sense since he was a hologram and he couldn't really- um- anyway... So, the beast had grabbed a power pack which had enough power to shut down the Doctor permanently and then he chased the Doctor into the universe room.

Unfortunately, the Doctor's hands had malfunctioned again.

"Rose! How far behind me is he?" The Doctor took another leap and he passed through the railing only flickering a little bit.

Rose winced as the creature, that definitely was not the person he had been before the self enforced upgrade, smashed into the platform just below him.

"He's getting really close- _hurry up_!"

"I'm trying! Fun isn't it?"

"What?!"

He took another leap and thankfully his hands came back on. He was holding the edge of the next platform and pulling himself up.

"The adrenaline? The rush? The feeling?"

"We don't have adrenaline!"

"Don't it feel good though? Doesn't it make you feel alive?"

Rose realized something then, she _had_ been enjoying the chase. She'd been laughing earlier as the thing chased them into different parts of the complex.

She grinned, "Yeah, you're right."

The werewolf robot thing seemed to be getting closer. Rose yelled, "Bad wolf! Go away! Bad bad werewolf!"

The wolf paused and snarled at Rose and the Doctor.

Speaking of, the Doctor stood up, ran forward, and jumped across the huge gap to where she was standing. He landed onto the grated part and rolled before coming to a stop at her feet. He laid back and laughed. Rose giggled but the pounding below them reminded them of why they were up there beside the universe machine.

The Doctor stood up with a jolt and grabbed Rose's hands, "Come Rose, Allons-y!"

They managed to trick the werewolf into falling off the platforms. The Doctor left afterwards saying that he needed to recharge. Rose wasn't so old a model that she needed a charger and she watched him go with a conflicted look on her face.

 **(-10-)**

A group of mechanical black creatures that recycled bits to repair themselves and cannibalized other models got in the universe. The Doctor fixed the 'Krillitanes' up right quick though and Rose barely got to see him before he left in hurry. Rose felt like the blue-suited hologram was avoiding her.

The next three days passed slowly until a whole new model came into Rose's room. They were large, bulky, and silver. Very crude machines compared to the state of the art HUMAN.

"May I help you?"

"We are the Cybermen. We are here to assimilate the universe's program." It said without even sparing her a glance.

Rose cocked her head, something wasn't right. "Assimilate? What does that mean? Is that reprogramming? I need authorization-"

The Cybermen turned to her and Rose swallowed fearfully, something definitely wasn't right here.

"You will be converted."

Okay, it was definitely an infestation, not an infection. She needed the Doctor! Oh bugger where was he when she needed him?

A electrical buzz caused the room's occupants to turn towards the front, there stood the Doctor, his face an expression of shock.

"Blimey..." He shook himself and then he saw Rose. "Hello, Rose! I see you have an infestation, did you need a Doctor?"

Rose grinned in relief, and the Cybermen all turned. "Delete the Doctor! Delete! Delete!"

The Doctor's grin broke, "Oh, bugger. Rose don't let the bugs touch you- now run!"

"What?" But she was already running after the Doctor who had broke through the ranks by shimmering through them. His touch functional hands raised above his head so they didn't smack into the Cybermen and hinder his flight. The same went for his feet.

The Cybermen started after them right as the two slammed through the doors of the room for universe.

The doors closed with a bang. The Doctor dropped his tool box and, picking up a silver tool with a blue light atop it, pointed it at the doors. They clicked and locked.

"What is that?"

The Doctor grinned, "Essential tool of the trade- sonic screwdriver! Come on, Rose, I know exactly how to beat the Cybermen, I've run into them before!"

Rose sighed in relief as she realized that not all was lost.

The Doctor soniced a panel by the doors and he typed and tapped for all he was worth.

"What are you doing?"

"Hacking the control centers- there's an outside party in control, if I can get to him- aha! Cybermen don't have emotions, but their original model did, so all I need to do is reverse the emotional inhibitors and-"

Rose snapped her fingers, "And, bam! They get emotions back!"

"Oh yes!" He grinned and Rose gave him one in return.

"I need a passcode. Stupid thing, I could hack it but they'll get through by then. If I was a Cybermen what would my passcode be? Well, it'd be something I couldn't possibly guess."

Rose tapped her chin and shrugged, "I dunno."

"It's not like they have a grandmother to name the password after or something-"

"Bad wolf."

"What?"

"Huh?"

"You just said bad wolf."

"Oh, maybe that's the password."

He typed it and whooped. "Rose Tyler you are a genius!" He tried to plant a kiss on her forehead but he stumbled right through her. Rose swore that if he was a HUMAN like her, he'd be blushing,

"Anyway..." The Doctor said. He walked over to the doors and banged on them.

"I'll give you a chance. One chance to clear out, or else I'll have to stop you!"

"Delete. Delete."

"There are no second chances, just listen to me, you'll all die!"

"We are the Cybermen and you will be assimilated."

"This is your last warning!"

"Delete!"

The Doctor hesitated before he flicked a switch and electricity sparked- arching around them. Suddenly, they heard robotic screams from the other room. The Doctor winced and Rose intertwined her fingers with his.

"What's happening?"

"They've been without emotions too long, all that buildup..."

Rose got the rest of the unsaid sentence.

"Oh."

Eventually the screaming stopped and both were paler then normal. They cleared away the burned and scarred remnants of the Cybermen, dumping them into the disposal area of the universe room where the floor opened and the metal fell and burnt up within seconds.

The Doctor had somehow lost his hologram cap in the clearing away and he mourned its loss loudly, but Rose said he looked better without it. He gave her a cheeky grin and winked when he caught her staring at it. His hair was sticky uppy, and a darker shade of blue then the rest of him. He called it 'Molto Bene.'

Or as Rose described it, really great hair.

 **(-10-)**

The next time the Doctor came over, something had alerted him again, he discovered Rose laying over the desk with her face- gone.

The Doctor stood in front of Rose for a full five minutes staring at the robot he was slowly falling in love with. No matter how much he wished that fact to be false.

"R- Rose?"

She stirred feebly and she raised a hand forward, but her fingers brushed through his blue coated arm.

The Doctor quickly grabbed her hand to show her that he was there. She squeezed reassuringly and the Doctor sighed. She wasn't... Gone.

He would find whatever did this and it would be sorry. He turned to the still running computer screen on Rose's desk. He typed quickly, but there was nothing hinting at whatever did it.

He helped Rose lean against the wall and then he began babbling about how his programmers had tried different biologies- not the usual one hearted Homo sapiens. He talked about how he'd once had a body, a real live robotic body. Then he'd been destroyed in an explosion and gained a hologram body.

He talked and talked as he worked and soniced. He didn't want Rose to think she was alone. He jumped about and pushed buttons and pulled levers. He typed and clacked and then he uncovered the virus.

A woman shimmered into form on screen. Her face morphed into a snarl.

The Doctor smiled, "Ah- ha! Got you! Give her back!"

"I'm so hungry! So hungry! Feed me! _Feed me_!"

He saw the stream before it hit him, but it flowed right through him, into the wall.

"Hello! I'm the Doctor and I'm a hologram!"

" _What_?!"

He soniced the computer and the creature screamed as it dissolved into particles. He scowled and whacked his sonic several times against his palm.

"Bugger. Listen, Rose, I'll be right back and I _promise_ , I will get you your face back."

The scan he'd taken of the virus confirmed what he'd feared, the virus had infected the universe. Well, he only had to create th- never mind, explaining would take too long.

The Doctor leapt from the entrance room and he burst into the universe room.

An hour later he'd finished assembling a crude machine with old Cybermen parts and a few other spare parts from around the station.

He ran back through the doors to Rose's desk and the computer, then he plugged the machine in. He liked to call it the 'Really Obviously Sanctioned E-machine.' Or, ROSE. Also, as it was officially called, Malus-Lupin. The programmers really liked fairy tales. Bad wolf in Latin. Now where had he heard that before?

He shook himself, anyway, the E-machine would pull the virus out of whatever parts it had infected and destroy all traces of it. Hopefully.

He flicked a switch on ROSE and the creature screamed as the real Rose's face was returned.

She gasped and her hands fumbled to her face, feeling her nose, her eyes, her lips. Her hands stayed over her mouth and her breath hitched.

But she looked up at the Doctor and her voice was one of awe, horror, and curiosity.

"What _was_ that?"

Rose was soon up and running again with a cheerful grin. He'd thought she'd have nothing to do with him, but she'd sat him down and asked him if she should be prepared for things like that in the future. She'd said it was just shock and that she hadn't expected it, the Doctor told her that if she was going to continue to be one of the front lines of the universe, that she should be prepared for the worst.

Rose just grinned and said it was exciting. The Doctor pretended not to notice that they were holding hands again.

 **(-10-)**

 **(A/N: This corrupted bot they talk about? Think about that broken robot that Ultron took the form of. This robot was in the trailer, so it shouldn't be a spoiler, btw!)**

The Doctor blinked and looked up through the great hole, up up up until he saw a tiny white circle where the light, Rose, and safety waited. Another program had been activated by the Cybermen, the problem was that it was a corrupted program. He'd destroyed it but also gotten stuck down at the bottom of the universe. Well, not the bottom, just an old maintenance ledge branching out in the darkness.

The wonderful thing about being a hologram is that you can't get broken by falling a long distance.

He stood up and walked along the ledge. Something had caused that corrupted program to go even more haywire. Really, he'd carved symbols all over his face. Something had been controlling him.

Something that was down here, because when that robot had activated up there the quakes had started.

The Doctor decided to run and he soon found himself by a ladder that reached up to the connecting strings of platforms and stairs even way down here. In fact, he could see the dim form of a lift.

But another light distracted him. A reddish orange glow, like the heart of a fire, off to the left, in the universe machine. A huge deep maw drilled straight into the universe and suddenly, the quakes made sense. The Doctor rushed through the hole, and he began to sense heat.

A great monstrous robot from what could've been the dark ages growled and snarled as it saw the Doctor. He knew that this thing could destroy him in a second if it was loosed.

He backed up quickly. The thing charged him but it was yanked backwards as if attached with a great leash. A chain of pure energy blinked for a moment, stretched across it's neck, arms, and (he presumed) legs.

"Hello, I'm the Doctor! I'd ask you what you want but it's pretty obvious."

The thing snarled, "Freedom."

"Blimey. I don't think so."

"My consciousness has escaped. It's free!"

"The berserk robot? We destroy it, it's dead."

The thing laughed, "No! It is not dead, your precious little friend is up there alone with it. You forget, you needed to dispose of the body not just the control matrix."

The Doctor swallowed, "I have faith in Rose. She's brilliant. She'll know."

Speaking of Rose, the very same robot swung her feet over the ledge. The Doctor wasn't dead. He was a hologram. He'd be fine. She knew it. She'd just have to wait until he made it back or contacted her. He'd find a way.

A noise drew her attention and she gasped as she realized that the corpse of the robot they had electrocuted (the electricity had fried the control matrix) twitched. That wasn't even possible. But obviously, it was, because the thing's fingers moved and it's palms pushed on the ground.

Rose stood up, somehow she'd have to distract it and destroy it...

An idea sparked and Rose darted to the disposal where the Cybermen had been dumped.

Down back with the monster, the Doctor paced as the thing growled. "You put your programming in the bot? Wouldn't that have been fried along with the control matrix? That doesn't make sense unless... Oh. _Oh_. You gave it extra protection and behind shielding- oh I'm such an idiot!"

The Doctor whirled, "I'm giving you one chance. Let the bot go, leave Rose alone, and I won't shut you down. If I destroy your body and Rose demolishes your mind, you'll perish because your consciousness won't have anything to go back too. You can't hack the mainframe, you would've done it already if you could've."

The beast growled a no. He sighed. "Then, I'm sorry, I'm so so sorry."

The Doctor darted to the control panel and he soniced it before grinning, "My Rose is smarter than you think, now Allons-y!" He sped out, and began climbing the ladder to the lift as fast he could. He hoped Rose would be all right. This quake was going to be the biggest of them all.

Rose, meanwhile, stood in the corner and pretended to be fiddling with the wall panel. The robot behind her was slowly crawling closer.

She whirled when she heard a crack. The thing was standing up now and it stood right before her trap. Just a few more steps.

"You do know that I'll kill you... and your precious Doctor. He's down here with my body." The thing's voice was deep and distorted.

"He's alive?"

The bot cocked it's broken, blackened, and grotesque head. The artificial skin had long since been burned off and it's metal form was peeled open in places- spilling wires out. One of its arms was also gone. To Rose, the bot was like a rotting animated corpse. It's glowing red eyes darted about the room. The symbols it had carved into it's skin were still there, they had gone deeper then skin and they showed menacingly.

"Not for long."

"You're lying. He's fine."

The robot jerked and then growled. A huge quake rocked the ground and Rose fell to her knees with a crack. The building rumbled and Rose shot a terrified look at the universe, but it stayed still, practically the only thing that did.

When the tremors finally diminished, the bot laughed hysterically, "He's dead! He's dead, I've killed him!"

Rose gasped. The Doctor? Dead? It's seemed so impossible... Yet here was her evidence. Rose stood on shaky legs and she backed against the wall.

"Are you going to kill me now?"

"Not until I've removed your trap."

Rose bit her lip.

"You didn't think I wouldn't notice did you?"

Rose shrugged, "Actually, I might've. I've also got nothing to lose."

She typed the password, two two three nine six five three, on the computer hooked to the wall. The floor of the disposer opened and the robot screamed as it fell. She'd hoped it would step on the trap because she'd have been able to stop the disposer from opening all the way.

Unfortunately, now she couldn't. It would automatically open all the way. The floor split from underneath her and she screamed.

Rose fell and the safety floor shot closed beneath her. The hot metal burnt her artificial skin and she bit her lip to stop from screaming. Rose looked up, she thought she'd never be more thrilled to see the Doctor then at that moment.

He stood, his hologram figure flickering as he peered down at her, with his sonic pointed at the panel.

"You okay?"

Rose laughed in relief, "Molto Bene! He said you were dead!"

The Doctor grinned, "Take a lot more than that to put me down."

Rose felt like kissing the hologram, but therein lied her problem and who was to say he even liked her that way, anyway?

 **(-10-)**

There was a strange incident with a Abzorbaloff, but other then that the next month was fairly quiet. The month after that a girl bot of about twelve cycles showed up at their door with a message that she was to stay.

Rose sighed as she looked up over her clipboard at the girl fiddling with some downloadable memory cubes quietly in the corner. That's all she, Chloe Webber, ever did. Rose also thought she might be a snitch too, her pen was missing as well as her only hair band and for some reason, one of her shoes.

She did sympathize with the child, she was probably going through a difficult time. That still didn't justify her actions though...

Rose groaned this time and tapped her fingers impatiently on her desk. A crackling noise filled the room and the Doctor appeared with a grin on face, "Hello Rose! I'm detecting another robot, sorry it's been a while I had to charge quite a bit, but anyway I'll just go check it out-"

"Doctor. She's right there."

"Who?"

"Orders, we need to babysit her, Chloe Webber, for a week." Rose pointed at the corner where the girl stared at the Doctor with a shocked expression on her face.

"But, it was classed as an infection. Look, seriously-" he leaned closer and whispered into Rose's ear, "I'm getting readings right now, somehow she's an infection!"

Rose blinked.

The Doctor pulled out his sonic and scanned her as Chloe began tapping on the keypad wired to the cube furiously.

"See my readings say she's an- what the?!" His sonic disappeared from his hand. The Doctor slowly looked up from his hands and stared at the girl in horror.

"I'm so lonely." Chloe said sadly.

"Doctor, what is it?"

"She's an Isolus. Don't move."

"What, why?"

"If she downloads us, we'll be trapped in the cube."

The girl picked up one of her cubes and showed them it, it had a picture of the Doctor's sonic screwdriver.

"So that's where my stuff went!" Rose realized.

The Doctor reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a little ball filled with flames. "Rose, the Isolus bots are drifters, they travel in groups of roughly six billion and they eat trash. I think this Isolus has been separated from its group. So she's looking for more peopl- uh-oh."

"What?"

"She's going to try and download the universe! There's plenty things to keep her company there!"

Rose looked at the doors and then Chloe. "What about Chloe Webber?"

"All we have to do is find the Isolus pod, and get it to fly again. That shoul-" the Doctor suddenly vanished and the ball of flame he'd been holding dropped to the ground.

Rose gasped as she realized Chloe had begun to type again while they were talking. Rose walked forward, scooping up the ball, without a thought and snatched the cube Chloe had just unhooked form the keypad.

A rendition of the Doctor stood before her with a shocked expression on his features. The most startling thing about the picture on the cube was that he was in color. Not just his hologram blue, but _color_.

He was wearing a brown pinstriped suit, a long tan jacket, and cream converse. His hair was a dark brown color the same as his eyes.

Rose yanked her gaze away from the cube, "What did you do?!"

"But I'm so lonely."

Rose looked at the cube again, the Doctor was pointing at an old cube on the table. It appeared to have of a small podlike spaceship. He was also holding in his hand the ball of flame. Rose knew what she had to do.

Chloe had plugged in a new cube and begun typing again. Rose grabbed the cube with pod upon it and the girl yelped a startled, 'hey!'

Rose smashed the ball of fire onto the cube which fell apart. Chloe gasped, a strange white mechanical thing floated out of her mouth and into the pod. The now refueled pod zipped away outside of the complex back to find it's group. Chloe blinked and looked around.

"Where am I?"

The cubes had begun glowing and Rose's hair band, shoe, and pen blinked into existence.

The Doctor came after his sonic and he stumbled and peered at his now blue features as if to check what color they were.

"Doctor!" Rose rushed forward and then stopped short as she relied she couldn't touch him. "Never mind, I'll just see about getting Chloe home..."

The Doctor ran a hand over his hair in a confused fashion. "Yeah, yeah... I'll just..."

Neither of them noticed another cube under Rose's desk. A cube that had expelled an actual paper with two words scribbled upon it, 'Bad Wolf.'

 **(-10-)**

Rose sighed as she watched the Doctor work with his sonic screwdriver. The Time Lord was bent under a console and babbling something about long term damage from the quakes that had happened ages ago.

Rose yawed and she blinked as she heard the door open from the entrance room. She turned and gasped as multiple of her danger sensors went off inside her.

"Rose, did you just do something?"

"Doctor?"

"I'm getting weird alerts."

"Doctor?"

"These read outs are strange, are you sure you didn't do something?"

"Doctor!"

"Yes, Rose?" He backed out from under the console he'd been working on.

"What are those?"

The Doctor turned, took off his glasses, and his eyes widened in a look that scared her. It wasn't a look she was used to seeing, it was burning seething hate and something else, a cold hard fear.

Rose took a step back as he hissed, "They're _Daleks_!"

The creatures turned what appeared to be an eyestalk towards them, "Exterminate! Exterminate!" They screamed, "Exterminate the Doctor! Exterminate the Doctor!"

He grabbed Rose's hand as he shouted, "Run!"

Their shoes pounded upon the hard metal ground as the Doctor pulled her towards the universe. Rose knew why they were going to it, there was an impenetrable shield that sprung up around the machine, once the safety robot activated it.

Rose was the safety bot. Obviously.

The Doctor shot a quick look back at the Daleks and ducked from an incoming laser beam.

"Hurry, Rose!"

"They won't hit you, you're a hologram!"

"You think they don't know that? I've been a hologram for some time, they're smart enough to have developed weapons that can kill me!"

He ducked again, pulling Rose down with him. At that moment his touch function malfunctioned again.

"Don't worry, Rose, I'm still here! Run!"

Rose ran for her life but a sound of pain distracted her, and she skidded to a stop and looked behind her. The Doctor was falling, a laser beam must have hit him, and he screamed before his power shut off, _"Rose!"_

Then he was gone.

And somewhere in the back of her mind, Rose was aware of the shield coming up around the universe and she knew that she must have given up. The Daleks surrounded her and Rose knew no more.

 **(-10-)**

The Doctor blinked himself awake and he groaned, before pushing himself up, his touch function must have come back on. He sat up and rested his hand on his head.

Where was Rose? Had she made it to safety? He pulled his sonic out and gasped. It was a tarnished silver. He looked at his legs and hands. His hands were a lovely skin color and his legs were clothed in a brown pinstriped suit. He reached up and pulled his hair down in front of his face, it was a dark brown.

He wasn't a hologram! He was a robot with a body!

"Molto Bene!" The Doctor laughed and then he clapped his hands over his mouth. His voice had been set on Estuary English accent when he was a hologram, but his original voice appeared to be a thick Scottish brogue.

"Allons-y. Ooh. Rose Tyler!" He named testing out his new voice.

"Sonic screwdriver. Bingle bongle dooble dibble shamble bibble dobble. Banana! The universe. Judoon platoon on the moon. Judoon. Cybermen. Dalek." Speaking of the Daleks the Doctor realized he needed to find Rose. He recognized where he was now, it was a robot body shop. His repaired body must have been sitting here for quite some time waiting for his hologram to a) power down, or 2) die. Or would that be b)?

He shook himself, stood up, and pushed the door open. It was just a small maintenance room, nothing special. He crossed the cramped space and opened the second door cautiously. Ah, here was the entrance area before the universe room.

Rose was not at her desk, of course not. She would be in the universe room, safely behind the shield.

He couldn't open the door, the Dalek's appeared to have locked it. He carefully soniced the door to the universe room open and peered in. A Dalek had one of it's plunger like things pressed to the panel on the wall, another forty stood beside it and Rose... Rose was standing with them.

She stood at attention as if part of an army. The Doctor was getting a sickening feeling. Something definitely wasn't right here. Then Rose turned and saw the Doctor.

He knew what was wrong then, her eyes were hard and cold. Also the fact that they glowed deep blue like the Dalek's eyestalks helped a bit.

Rose stalked towards him and a black Dalek, obviously the leader, followed her movements with its eyestalk but it did nothing to stop her.

He nonchalantly placed his hands behind his back and pressed a button on the sonic.

A bleep confirmed what he suspected. Rose was gone, this was Dalek reprogramming. Unfortunately, the one thing he couldn't hack was Dalek programming.

"Rose. If you're there, please listen to me."

Rose stopped a foot from him, something appeared to be slung across her back, and she spoke a word, "Exterminate."

"Rose, please, it's me- the Doctor."

One of her hands twitched slightly, but other than that, she didn't move.

"It's just the Dalek programming, I know you can beat it, you're Rose Tyler. Please."

"Exterminate." Rose stepped forward and pulled the thing on her back forward, it was a big black gun.

"Rose. Please, you're brilliant, you're so much more-" she slammed him across the face with the butt of the gun and the back of his head smacked into the wall which he slid down.

Stupid bloody programmers. They gave robots pain sensors just for the heck of it. Something wet and tangy filled his mouth and trickled down out of it. He knew it was black oil. Basically, his blood.

"Rose. Please. Wake up."

Rose pointed the barrel at his head and the lights from the ceiling lit her blond hair up like a halo. She looked like an angel of death.

"Rose..."

She cocked the gun.

"I suppose if I only have one last chance to say it..."

She aimed.

"Rose Tyler, I love you."

She didn't move and for a second, he thought she had frozen, but her body started to glow gold- blinding him and he covered his eyes as the room heated up and gold seared his eyelids.

An explosion rocked the ground and he knew no more.

 **(-10-)**

His eyes blinked open just a few minutes later and he saw Rose gasping and holding her stomach. Her eyes were clenched shut.

He sat up quickly. "Rose?"

"D- Doctor?"

The Dalek's stood behind her, smoking husks of the fearsome creatures they had once been. The Dalek's were dead.

Rose clutched her head and groaned.

The Doctor scrambled to his feet and scanned her with the sonic. She was burning up from the inside. He knew instantly that this was defense programming. Huge defensive programming and now she burning up just from it.

How was he to stop it? Whatever it was. Rose opened her eyes, they were glowing a molten gold color, her eyes swimming in atron energy. The very same energy that they'd used to create him. They must've used the last particles of it for the defense system.

"I'm not Rose. I'm Bad Wolf. Are you afraid of the big Bad Wolf, Doctor?" Her eyes flashed.

"Just hang on..." He knew his mind could handle it, but how to draw it out? An idea sprung into being and he acted impulsively.

In short, he kissed her.

Rose or Bad Wolf drew in her breath but did not pull away, she melted into it and sparkling energy flowed from her to him in waves.

He finally pulled away with a gasp and shook his head vigorously. "Molto Bene! Ha! Knew that'd work! We're all good now!"

Rose was breathing heavily and staring at him in shock. "What was that?"

"Bad Wolf. Energy, drawing it out?"

"That meant nothing?"

"What?"

"You _kissed_ me."

"Oi, I had to work with what I had-"

Rose growled and grabbed his tie before pulling him in for a much longer kiss. When they finally broke away, the Doctor blinked.

"O- okay."

"I love you."

"Quite right too."

This time, the Doctor cupped her head and kissed her again. Rose smiled against his lips and her fingers idly played with the hair at the nape of his neck.

She'd always wondered what his hair would've felt like.

 _Fin_


End file.
